The yard was a mess, a stretch of broken ground infested with dandelions and devil’s club, with a few construction bricks, half a sack of pea gravel, and some rebar for garden art. He parked in front and walked up to the door. Somewhat to his surprise, it wasn’t locked, and he went in.
He wasn’t expecting to find anyone there before him, either. His mistake. The front office of the post occupied half of the floor space of the building. On one side of the room was a coffee table and a couple of armchairs. A table holding a coffee setup sat in one corner.
On the other side of the room was a desk placed at an angle so that it was the first thing one saw walking in. At this desk sat a young woman, early twenties, with narrow, tilted brown eyes and long brown hair. At first glance she reminded him of someone, although he couldn’t think who. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Liam Campbell.”
Her spine visibly stiffened. She rose immediately to her feet and extended her hand in a gesture reminiscent of snapping a salute. “Sergeant Campbell. It is very nice to meet you, sir. I’m Sally Petroff, your administrative aide.”
“I didn’t know I had an administrative aide, and it’s Liam,” he said, shaking her hand. Her grip was firm but didn’t linger. “Who hired you?”
“I interviewed for the job with Colonel Barton, sir.”
The “sir” indicated that addressing him as Liam would be a work in progress. Okay then, tit for tat. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Ms. Petroff. What’s your background?”
“I was born in Kapilat across the bay. I have an AAS in Business Management from Charter College in Anchorage, and I spent a year working under Audrey Pratt in Colonel Barton’s office, also in Anchorage. I’m fluent in APSIN, ARMS, IRIS, ALDER, and OARS, and I can write dispatches upon request.”
If she had survived training by Audrey Pratt, a martinet on the order of George S. Patton, she had smarts and stamina. He was mildly encouraged. “You’re a local,” he said. “Which means you know everybody. That will come in handy, since I’m not and I don’t know anyone.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Relax, Ms. Petroff. You already got the job.” She did not visibly relax, and he sighed inwardly. On top of everything else he had to break in a new employee, and he hated supervising. “Do I have an office?”
“You do, sir. Please follow me.” A door in the back wall led to a small hallway with four doors off it, two on one side, two on the other, and a fifth with a screened window through which he could see a corner of the cop shop. “Those two are interview rooms, that’s the bathroom, and that is the evidence room.”
“I noticed the bank vault-worthy lock. You have the code?”
“I do. Here is your office.” She opened the door and stood back. The room was just big enough to include a desk and a chair and two upright chairs across from it. There was a window in back of the desk, and that concluded the tour.
“Thank you,” Liam said. He perched one hip on a corner of the desk and folded his arms. The more he looked at her, the more she reminded him of someone but he couldn’t nail it down. “What is your job description, Ms. Petroff?”
She swallowed and, he could tell, immediately regretted this betrayal of nerves. “All dispatches go through Soldotna, but I field any local calls. I keep your paperwork in order—Ms. Pratt was emphatic on the subject of tracking your overtime—and I liaise with Chief Armstrong’s admin to ensure that all areas of our detachment are covered. You will have noticed the post has no holding cell.”
Sidney Armstrong was Blewestown’s police chief. “I have.”
“Since this post was built simultaneously with Blewestown’s new police headquarters, it was thought that as a cost-saving measure that this post could utilize their cells for any detainees we might have.”
Before Liam could ask what other cost-saving measures there had been because bitter experience had taught him that there were always more, invariably to the detriment of whatever his mission was wherever he had been posted, they both heard the outer door open.
A woman was waiting for them in the front office. Medium height, medium though very curvy weight, blonde/green. “Shoot me now,” Liam said.
“Sir?”
“Hey, Liam,” the blonde said affably. “How you been?”
“Ms. Petroff?”
“Sir?”
“Does part of your job description include liaising with the press?”
“Sir, I interned four weeks with public relations, during which I wrote releases, fielded inquiries, and briefed three times.”
“Excellent. Handle this, please?” Liam returned to his office and shut the door firmly behind him.
It opened as he was sitting down at his desk. “Nice try, Liam,” the blonde said no less affably than before. “Don’t blame the kid, she tried her best.”
From behind her Petroff peered with a worried expression. “Sir, I’m sorry, but she just wouldn’t—”
He waved her off. “Don’t worry about it, Ms. Petroff. Carry on.”
She did her best not to look too relieved.
“Don’t worry, kid,” Jo said. “This guy’s a magnet for action. You’ll be seeing a lot of me.”
The door shut softly and Jo sat down across from Liam. They contemplated each other for a moment.
Jo Dunaway was a reporter for the Anchorage News and, for Liam’s sins, his wife’s college roommate at the University of Alaska and lifelong best friend. She was a very good reporter and an even better friend, and she enjoyed giving him wedgies in both of those roles. Payback was a way of life for Jo, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t close to being done with paying him back for the heartache he had caused Wy in the early stage
